


das Fieber

by SandSunSiliceousOoze



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Caretaking, Dreams and Nightmares, Fever, Hurt/Comfort, Infection, Multi, Other, Sickfic, Soltryce Academy (Critical Role)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29171166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandSunSiliceousOoze/pseuds/SandSunSiliceousOoze
Summary: “Hallooo, Bren?”Thick fingers snap near his face, and he jerks back into his body.“Was? What’s-?” Bren’s head is pounding, and he has to rub his eyes before he can make out Eadwulf leaning over the table towards him, brows furrowed in concern. Astrid is standing behind him, looking similarly worried.“I’ve been trying to talk to you for a few minutes and you were just sitting there looking like a wight. Are you alright? You don’t look well.”“You’re burning up,Liebling. And you’re all sweaty.” Astrid grimaces, and wipes her hand on his sleeve near the shoulder. “Du bist krank.”
Relationships: Astrid/Eodwulf/Bren Aldric Ermendrud
Comments: 7
Kudos: 72





	das Fieber

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a server holiday gift exchange. Hope you enjoy!!
> 
> Content warnings: illness, infection, blood, graphic descriptions of residuum experiments, dream/nightmare sequences, general themes of torturing teenagers offscreen as Ikithon is wont to do.

“Explain it again, _bitte_? I was still writing.”

Bren sighs, but it’s teasing more than exasperated. “So when you try to cast a spell without your material components or focus present, you are lacking in an extra source of energy and power. For example, when Sassa casts Phantasmal Force, she must have her fleece for the spell because of the specific sort of static electricity it provides when she makes the somatic gestures-”

“No, no, I understand _that_. It’s the bit about some components being used up and others having infinite uses.” Eadwulf looks frustrated, and there’s a smudge of ink on his cheek. “It just doesn’t make sense. Why does Arcane Lock consume its components but I can use the same shitty piece of leather for Mage Armor until it rots away from age?”

A bead of sweat runs down the nape of Bren’s neck, and he can feel his head throbbing dully. He hates the way his body reacts to not getting enough sleep. It always feels like he’s getting sick. “It is about the ways in which the arcane weave reacts to certain materials based on how you are trying to manipulate it.”

From across the room, Astrid snorts. “That is such a bullshit answer. He doesn’t actually know, Ead.”

“Oh? Then why don’t you enlighten us, _Professorin_ , if you have all the answers?”

She sits up straight from where she was lounging on the couch and reading through her textbook. “I mean, you aren’t _entirely_ wrong. And we don’t completely know the reasons for certain magical effects-”

“See, you don’t know either!”

“ _-but_ , if you actually paid attention in class instead of making googly eyes at one another, you would remember that just last week, Professor Neumann _said_ that the more complex the spell, the more you will have to do to pull it off. Higher levels of magic require greater knowledge and sacrifice. Arcane Lock is harder than Mage Armor, and its effects are more substantial. So you have to give more to get more.”

Eadwulf nods thoughtfully before putting his quill back to the parchment before him and scratching out a previous sentence. “That makes sense. _Danke_ , Sassa.”

“Astrid,” she says pointedly, frowning at the nickname. “And you’re welcome.”

Bren wants to object, to call Astrid out for stealing his thunder and giving an incorrect answer- even if he’s not sure yet how it was incorrect- but his head is starting to properly hurt, and he can feel his shirt sticking to the small of his back from sweat. Briefly he closes his eyes, trying to get himself to focus once more on the work in front of him. With his vision gone, he can focus more on the input from his other senses- the smell of candles burning down and fresh ink, the sound of the fire crackling in the common room hearth, the dull pain in his forearm that just won’t go away or fade. His face feels warm, but it’s probably just the heat of the room. Rexxentrum is currently blanketed in a thick layer of snow, so the Academy has put extra effort into keeping its students warm and comfortable. Better to be warm than cold. 

Still, he is _very_ warm. 

As he turns back to his notes, he slips his feet free of his shoes and tucks his legs underneath him, criss-cross. It’s easy to lose himself in his coursework- there is so much new and fascinating information, so many explanations of spellcasting that answer questions he never would have even thought to ask. Notes scrawled in the margins of the old textbook suggest various substitutions for material components, some with asterisks next to them, others crossed out. It’s like holding a holy artifact, something that others have treasured before him, something with power and history. It’s thrilling, but today he’s having trouble focusing on the words in front of him. Every few minutes, his eyes unfocus until the ink on the pages is nothing more than a blur, and it takes several blinks to get his sight back. It doesn’t help that his headache is getting increasingly worse and the overly warm feeling is turning into a full-body chill. His arm feels like it’s throbbing where the shard of residuum sits beneath his skin, like his heart is beating both in his chest and midway up his forearm. 

“ _Hallooo_ , Bren?”

Thick fingers snap near his face, and he jerks back into his body. 

“ _Was_? What’s-?” Bren’s head is pounding, and he has to rub his eyes before he can make out Eadwulf leaning over the table towards him, brows furrowed in concern. Astrid is standing behind him, looking similarly worried.

“I’ve been trying to talk to you for a few minutes and you were just sitting there looking like a wight. Are you alright? You don’t look well.”

Astrid walks around the table to put the back of her hand to Bren’s forehead, and the both of them flinch. Her hand feels like ice against his skin, even colder than usual, and he can only imagine how warm he must feel to her. 

“You’re burning up, _Liebling_. And you’re all sweaty.” She grimaces, and wipes her hand on his sleeve near the shoulder. “ _Du bist krank_.”

“I just didn’t sleep well last night,” he says, but he’s not sure he believes it. He’s never had a fever after sleeping poorly. “It’s nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing. You look like shit.” Eadwulf is frowning at him, and pushes his mug closer. “Drink some water, will you?”

Part of him wants to refuse just on principle, but he _is_ thirsty. So he drains the water left in the mug and feels some small relief at the feeling of cool water running down his throat. 

“I think you should go to the infirmary,” Astrid says, softly like she knows how he feels about the idea and introducing it quietly will make him more receptive to it. 

“Mm.”

“You really don’t look good. Maybe you caught something, a lot of students are sick lately.” Wulf’s eyes drop to Bren’s arm, where the sleeve of his uniform is covering his bandages. “Or… have you looked at it today? It might be… you know, infected.”

His arm pulses at the mention of it, and Bren winces slightly. “ _Nein_ , I haven’t, but… Master Ikithon said to just keep it covered up, let it heal and it should be fine.”

Astrid’s hand comes to cover his, and her skin is so _cold_. “I think we should look at it. If it’s infected, it will only get worse.”

_If it’s infected, I’ll have to tell Master Ikithon and he’ll be disappointed with me. He told me I was chosen to go first because he thought I could handle it the best. I can’t let him down._

Bren shakes his head, and pulls his hand away. “I will lie down. I’m just tired.”

There’s an exasperated sigh from across the table, but neither of them argue with him. 

“Astrid, make sure he makes it to his bed. I’m going to get him some more water.” Wulf stands up and cracks his neck before taking Bren’s mug from him and heading out of the common room to one of the enchanted water fountains in the dormitory halls. 

“Let’s get all of this packed up.” Astrid helps Bren collect his notes and textbooks and put them into his satchel, batting his hands away when he reaches for it and slinging the strap over her shoulder instead. “Come on. Your room isn’t too far.”

Standing up is more complicated than Bren expected. His muscles ache as he uncrosses his legs, slips his feet back into his shoes, and pushes his chair back to get up. Luckily the table is just in front of him, and he’s able to lean on it for support when his knees start to give. Astrid still stands beside him, arms crossed, but he doesn’t ask for help. Instead, he takes a moment to steady himself before taking his hands off of the table and beginning to walk. His head throbs with every step, but he’s still doing it. Surely things aren’t that serious if he can still walk. 

Bren doesn’t entirely remember how he gets to his room, just that Astrid follows him all the way there and pulls back the covers for him to climb in. The curtains are drawn, but he’s fairly certain it’s dark outside- or as dark as the world can get when it’s covered in white. By the time he hears the door open and Wulf’s footsteps approaching, his eyes are closed, and he’s envisioning himself walking through a world of soft white, the sky pitch-black but the snow reflecting the light of the moons, refusing to let the darkness of night consume the featureless land. Distantly, he hears voices, but what they’re saying is a mystery.

His dreams are a messy blur of memories and fiction- he sees himself holding a scalpel, slicing into skin, ignoring the bright red blood welling up to press a small, green crystal into the incision. When he looks up, he can see his own face staring back at him, jaw clenched as he tries not to cry out at the pain. He looks down to see his own arms covered in raised lines and scars, almost resembling a maze across his skin. When he looks back up, he can see Astrid and Eadwulf strapped into chairs, ready for their own procedures. Neither of them flinch as he approaches, but he can feel the uncertainty radiating from them. 

And then he blinks and finds himself in the Soltryce library. The shelves are impossibly tall and the aisle he’s in seems to stretch on infinitely in front of and behind him. Every book is bound in the same shade of green leather with titles written in deep red ink. He starts walking forward, but his surroundings don’t change. He turns and goes backwards to the same effect. The shelves around him seem to have no end, and the longer he looks, the higher and longer they seem to grow. Sinking to the floor puts him at eye level with a book bound in red leather, the only one that he can see that isn’t the same sickly shade of green. When he picks it up, it’s warm in his hands, and he can feel a faint pulsing from it. He can’t read the font on the front of the book- the lettering looks to be Common, but his eyes won’t focus on it long enough to comprehend it.

He opens it to the first page only to find it blank. He turns the page only to find more nothingness. As he stares, a bead of blood forms at the top of where the pages meet and runs down the crease of the book, growing in size as it does. Before he can react, blood is pouring from the book onto his lap, soaking hot and thick into his pants and pooling onto the wooden floor beneath him. He scrambles to his feet, dropping the book, but it lands open and continues to spill impossible blood. Turning, he tries to run only to find a new bookshelf towering over him and blocking the way. Blood is up to his ankles, now, and he can feel panic rising in his throat. He turns back, already expecting the bookshelf that greets him, but finds no solace in being correct. His pants are soaked to the knees, and hysterically, he wonders if he can tread blood the way one might tread water, or if he’ll just sink like he’s in quicksand. The blood is to his waist, and it’s so _hot-_

"-en. Bren, _Schatz_ , wake _up_." 

Everything is hazy for several moments. There's a hand on his shoulder shaking him gently and a soft voice in his ear. He is- he’s horizontal, he’s not in the library, he’s not drowning in blood, but he's _hot_ and his clothes are sticking to him unpleasantly from where he’s drenched in sweat. His head and his body ache, though the worst and sharpest of the pain is concentrated in the portion of his arm still wrapped in bandages. 

“Bren. Come on.” This voice is deeper, firmer, but it sounds like it’s coming from underwater. The sounds don’t make sense until his brain pieces them together into words, which takes several moments.

He curls in on himself, eyes squeezed shut. The change in position puts pressure on his arm, and he gasps as a bolt of white-hot pain streaks up his arm and into his chest. It’s hard to tell with how sweaty he is, but he thinks there might be tears on his cheeks. He hopes not. He didn’t cry when the residuum was put in, and it would be humiliating to cry now. 

“Hey. Come _on_ , you’re worrying us. Open your eyes.” Eadwulf’s voice doesn’t take as long to parse as it had a moment ago, which Bren can vaguely recognize as probably being a good thing.

"Mm." His mouth is dry and his tongue feels heavy and thick. Blearily, he opens his eyes to find that the room is mostly dark, with dim light emanating from just a few flickering candles. His vision is blurry with sleep, but he can make out two figures leaning over him. “ _W-Waßer?_ ” He croaks out.

One of the figures presses a cup to his lips, and carefully tilts it until he can drink. The water is cool and sweet in his mouth and he drinks until the cup is taken away. A dribble of water runs down his chin, and one of the figures dabs it away with a cloth. There are hushed whispers above his head, but he can’t follow what they’re saying for more than a moment at a time. So he lies still and counts his breaths until he can see that Astrid is to his left and Eadwulf is to his right. As they talk, he can see Astrid wringing out a cloth into a bowl on her lap and hear the _drip-drip-drip_ of water. Once it doesn’t drip any more, she unwinds it and folds it into a neat rectangle before laying it on Bren’s forehead. He swears that he hears a hiss of steam as the cold fabric touches his fever-hot skin.

“-don’t know that it won’t make him _worse_ , we should just go to the infirmary-”

“You heard the way he talked about this, what if going to the infirmary gets Bren in trouble? What if this is another test?”

“What if it _isn’t_? What if something is going very wrong and we’re just sitting here watching him die? I can’t just sit by-”

Bren’s voice is raspy when he interrupts. “What are you talking about?”

Eadwulf looks at him first, and the concern on his face is made all the more dramatic by the flickering candlelight. “I want to- to take you to see a doctor. And Astrid thinks-”

“I _think_ that if this is a- a test, or a challenge, or _something_ , going to a stranger for help will result in failure. And I don’t want you to get into trouble.” The look on her face is a mixture of sorrow and determination, and one that Bren understands.

“I agree with Astrid. I… I believe this is happening because I did something wrong.”

“It’s _happening_ because you have a fucking _infection_ , Bren!” Wulf is quick to roll his sleeve up, but he’s gentle as he does. “You see?” 

There is a large, angry red streak running up his pale arm from beneath the bandages. Just looking at it sends a pulse of pain through him, and he winces. Wulf’s fingers are careful and delicate as he undoes the bandage, revealing the rest of the streak and more red skin around the sutures. Bren grimaces, and looks away. 

“This is bad,” Eadwulf says softly, his hand now resting atop Bren’s. “ _Bitte_ , you need to go to the infirmary. It will only get worse.”

“ _Nein_ ,” Bren whispers, “ _nein_ , no, he will be angry with me. This was not supposed to happen. I’ve done something wrong, this is my fault-”

“Bren.” Astrid’s voice shakes just a little. “This isn’t your fault. I think- I think you should see someone about this.”

He shakes his head, and the now-warm cloth falls off. “Please, _bitte_ , I just need to sleep this off. I will be fine.”

It’s a lie that not even he believes, but the thought of disappointing Master Ikithon is far more frightening than the thought of getting sicker. He can feel his heartbeat in his aching head and in the red, angry incision, and he just wants to sink back into the painlessness of sleep, nightmares be damned. Above him, Astrid and Eadwulf share a look, wordlessly communicating something he can’t make out. Wulf’s hand reaches for the pendant around his neck, and he closes his eyes. Astrid takes a deep breath before picking the cloth up off of the bed and returning it to the bowl of water. 

“If you are still this bad in the morning, you are going to the infirmary without argument. I don’t _want_ to cast Hold Person on you so Ead can drag you across campus, but I _will_ if you make me.” Her tone is harsh, but she cups Bren’s cheek softly as she speaks, her thumb stroking his cheekbone. “We’ll be here for the rest of the night. We won’t leave you.”

“ _Danke_ ,” he says, suddenly too tired to argue any further. “ _Es tut mir leid, Sassa, Wulf…_ ”

“Shut up,” Astrid whispers, voice thick even as she continues stroking his cheek. “Go to sleep.”

Wulf doesn’t say anything, just tightens his grip on the pendant and starts to murmur something under his breath. The last thing Bren feels before he falls unconscious is a cool cloth being placed on his forehead once more and a large hand on his wrist.

*

Bren is not awake to see Eadwulf shiver as he completes his tenth repetition of an old prayer. He does not see a soft, dark glow where Wulf’s hand rests against his wrist. He does not feel the warmth of the divine spreading through his veins, does not watch in awe as the red lines beneath his skin fade away. But Astrid and Eadwulf do, and they stare at each other in confusion, wonder, horror, elation, and Eadwulf whispers a reverent _thank you_ into the darkness.

Bren is not awake to hear the pleased hooting of an owl outside just before it takes flight, and neither Astrid nor Wulf take any notice of the sound. They’re used to hearing owls nearby, after all.


End file.
